James Mountain Inhofe may not be the craziest tool currently in the Repug Shed, but he’ll serve as a fitting representative bobble-head for the whole lot of them in our year-end retrospective of some of the more insane Repugs we’ve enjoyed pillorying in 2012.

The new year always bring fresh opportunities for renewal and success, but 2013 is also virtually guaranteed to bring US another year’s worth of shockingly insane shenanigans by actually elected Repuglicants, wannabe elected Reptilicans, along with the usual dung-cart load of Right Wing media pundicks and professional bloviators. The clock is ticking down, so let’s not waste another minute. Here in no particular order, of course, are some of our favorite insane Repugs, depicted in our favorite way:

“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There’s no denying we dodged a very expensive corporate fusillade when we voted to throw this flaccid duo on the dung heap of political effluvia.

“The [politicians] of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.”
—Nikola Tesla

No, that’s not a carrot. John Boehner was, until recently, the undisputed leader of all that wreaks crazy on the Hill. But times are changing, and an eight inch proboscis doesn’t carry the weight it once did, especially with the elephantine Tea Bag trunks that are wagging today.

“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”
― Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays

Mitch McDumpty sat on the wall,
Mitch McDumpty did nothing at all.
All the GOP asses— all the GOP men—
Did nothing to help the people again.

Newton Leroy Gingrich would have been the most insane Philanderer-in-Chief evah, in Washington, or Moon Base 1.

*

Jan Brewer ran unopposed for our unofficial but heart-felt finger-wagging award as the Rudest Bitch in Government. Rudest Bitch Not in Government was a three-way tie between Mr. Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and Pam Geller.

While we’re talking bitches:

Sean Hannity, another perennial fave, makes our list every year as “The Transparently Stupid Guy Who Tries The Hardest Not To Appear Transparently Stupid.”

“The stuff that comes out of Sean Hannity’s mouth has been infuriating. The stuff that Bill O’Reilly says has been illogical. You go up and down the schedule and it’s insanity over there. The number of lies, perpetuated, promoted by Fox News is just shameful and it hurts everybody. ”—David Shuster

Sean and Bill gitty-up; no, those are toy guns.

The Three Fux Stooges

•

We admit to heart palpitations over the closeness of Michele Bachmann’s last race; cuz we need one totally insane person in the Congress just so we never let up on our efforts to, well, get all the insane people out of Congress.

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” —Marcus Aurelius

Nobody moves the insane in the membrane goalposts farther or faster than Donald tRump, who just cancelled construction on his insane, literally underwater, 24 million dollar boondoggle “catering hall.”

“We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.”
—Carl Bernstein

W.T.F.

•

Karl you ignorant slut.You look perfect in prison orange.

“In America, the criminally insane rule and the rest of us, or the vast majority of the rest of us, either do not care, do not know, or are distracted and properly brainwashed into acquiescence.”
—Kurt Nimmo

Hucka-Chickabee is off the diet and on the crazy train again with his insane comments over the Newtown massacre. His dependability as a nut job is often staggering, but now it’s also caused by his gross tonnage.

Resplendent in her make-believe Presi-Queen victory dress over First Runner-up Loser Carrie What’s-her-name and Second Runner-up Loser Willard Romney, Sarah wore an elegant strapless gown with a fitted ruched bodice accented with gorgeous lace piquewadeens¹ and hand-beaded details; the silk and taffeta fabric was spun exclusively for Mrs Palin by 100% American Evangelical silk worms. Romney’s dress, on the other hand, was valued at over $14 million dollars, and was custom made on Planet Kolob from pure unrefined evil.

“There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.”—Frank Zappa

•

I’m already feeling a disturbance in the Force, so Ima stop here.

Best Wishes for a fabulous and progressively great new year, see you there.
Power to the People. Live in Light and Love.

While I’ve never been a fan of Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Ricks, whom I’ve always considered a deferential Pentagon Village groupie, he deserves mega props for sticking it to Fux News today.

Fux tries to sell itself as a serious news program during the midday hours when it isn’t featuring Rethug propagandists like O’Reilly, Hannity, Van Sustern, and the Fux Force Five. One of its supposed objective news anchors, Jon Scott, was gobsmacked today when Ricks spoke truth to power and called out Fux for being the propaganda arm of the GOP. (Actually, I think it’s the other way around, but we’ll let that go for now.)

“I think Benghazi was generally hyped by this network especially,” Ricks said. He added that he thought McCain seemed to be “backing off” from criticizing Rice since “the campaign [was] over.”

“When you have four people dead for the first time in more than 30 years, how do you call that hype?” Scott said, pushing back against Rice’s [sic] characterization of the network’s coverage.

Ricks compared the situation to security contractors who were killed in Iraq. He described the attack in Benghazi as a “small fire-fight” and added, “I think the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political, partly because Fox is operating as the wing of the Republican Party.“

UPDATE: 11/28/12 Ricks denies Fux News’ claim that he later apologized for his remarks. Huffpo reports:

On Tuesday, Ricks and Fox News were still feuding. Fox News’ executive VP of news editorial Michael Clemente told the Hollywood Reporter that Ricks “apologized in our offices afterward but doesn’t have the strength of character to do that publicly.”

Ricks denied an apology ever took place. In an email to the Hollywood Reporter, Ricks wrote, “Please ask Mr. Clemente what the words of my supposed apology were. I’d be interested to know. Frankly, I don’t remember any such apology.”

UPDATE: 11:30 a.m. — TVNewser spoke with Clemente, who told the site that he would “refresh [Ricks'] memory” on the apology. After the segment, Clemente said that Ricks told Fox News staffers, “Sorry … I’m tired from a non-stop book tour.” Clemente added, “Perhaps now he can finally get some rest.”

UPDATE: 6:20 p.m. — Ricks emailed Clemente on Tuesday afternoon to clarify that he did not apologize after his interview with Fox News. See a copy of his email below:

Mr. Clemente,

To clarify my comments for you: I did not apologize.

As it happened, I ran into Bret Baier as I emerged from the interview. We know each other from working at the Pentagon. He asked if I was serious in saying that Fox had hyped Bengahzi, and I said I was. We discussed that. It was cordial exchange. (I wouldn’t mention this private conversation except that you apparently are quoting my hallway conversations as part of your attack.)

Later, as I was leaving, the booker or producer (I am not sure what her title was) said she thought I had been rude. I said I might have been a bit snappish because I am tired of book tour. This was in no way an apology but rather an explanation of why I jumped a bit when the anchor began the segment with the assertion that pressure on the White House was building—which it most clearly was not.

Note to Fux News: By all means, keep ignoring the First Rule of Holes.

Mitt Romney’s attempt to satisfy the White Horse Prophecy is going up in flames

In 1835, Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, aka the Mormons, wrote in his collection of prophecies and insights titled Doctrines and Covenants:

“If ye are faithful, ye shall assemble yourselves together to rejoice upon the land of Missouri, which is the land of your inheritance, which is now the land of your enemies.”

One has to assume, if one is to believe in the efficacy of Smith’s prophecy, that his fellow Saints were less than faithful; or alternatively, that their sense of entitlement was ill-conceived; or that Smith was just another BS artist. Because, a mere three years later, after a successful voter suppression effort by 200 non-Mormon settlers in Gallatin on August 6, 1838 that led to a wider, catastrophic war, he and his entire community were driven out of the state of Missouri, lock, stock and barrel.

His petition for redress to President Martin Van Buren in 1839 was refused for starkly political reasons. Four years after that, Smith is said to have uttered another prophecy that became known as the White Horse Prophecy (WHORP) . Bill McKeever over at Thom HartmOnenn.com describes it thusly:

Another of Smith’s predictions, the “White Horse Prophecy,” gets its name from the biblical book of Revelation. The prophecy has been given a dubious distinction since there is no evidence that Smith ever gave it in a public setting. Instead, its pedigree goes back to two Mormons, Edwin Rushton and Theodore Turley, who said they personally heard Joseph Smith give this prediction at Smith’s home on or about May 6, 1843. Smith allegedly gave numerous predictions in this prophecy, but the portion that is most repeated speaks of a day when the Constitution of the United States will “hang by a thread.” It will be “preserved and saved” by a White Horse, A.K.A. the Mormon Church.

Seven generations of Mormon leaders, while jettisoning various parts of the prophecy including the violent overthrow of the US government, have nonetheless, kept hope alive. McKeever again:

In 1963 [EvraTaft] Benson again mentioned this prophecy in a conference message: “The Prophet Joseph Smith said the time would come when the Constitution would hang as it were by a thread. Modern-day prophets for the last thirty years have been warning us that we have been rapidly moving in that direction. Fortunately, the Prophet Joseph Smith saw the part the elders of Israel would play in this crisis. Will there be some of us who won’t care about saving the Constitution, others who will be blinded by the craftiness of men, and some who will knowingly be working to destroy it? He that has ears to hear and eyes to see can discern by the Spirit and through the words of God’s mouthpiece that our liberties are being taken” (Conference Report, April 1963, p.113).

Shades of the Tea Party, who never tire of warning us that “our liberties are being taken.” One has to assume that was a major selling point on the part of the Romney campaign to gain the support of the Teabaggers, whether they believed in the overarching validity of the prophecy itself, they were certainly down with the ‘they’re stealing our liberties’ stuff. One Teabagger who does believe wholeheartedly in the WHORP is the Mormon Mad Man, Glenn Beck. As Dana Milbank wrote at Huffpo:

“In one of his first appearances on Fox News, Glenn Beck sent a coded message to the nation’s six million Mormons — or at least those Mormons who believe in what the Latter-day Saints call “the White Horse Prophecy.”

“We are at the place where the Constitution hangs in the balance,” Beck told Bill O’Reilly on November 14, 2008, just after President Obama‘s election. “I feel the Constitution is hanging in the balance right now, hanging by a thread unless the good Americans wake up.”

[…]

Was it just a coincidence in wording, or was Beck, a 1999 Mormon convert, speaking in coded language about the need to fulfill the Mormon prophecy? A conversation on Beck’s radio show ten days earlier would seem to rule out coincidence. Beck was interviewing Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, also a Mormon, when he said: “I heard Barack Obama talk about the Constitution and I thought, we are at the point or we are very near the point where our Constitution is hanging by a thread.”

Days after Beck’s Fox show started in January 2009, he had Hatch on, and again prompted him: “I believe our Constitution hangs by a thread.”

Large numbers of Mormons watch Beck…

Earlier, during his 1999 run for the presidency, Orrin Hatch was quoted by The Salt Lake Tribune: “I’ve never seen it worse than this, where the Constitution literally is hanging by a thread” (“Did Hatch Allude To LDS Prophecy?” Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 11, 1999).” Mormons of a feather flock together.

Which brings us to the question: Does Mitt Romney, a bishop in the Mormon Church, consider himself the embodiment of Joseph Smith’s prophecy?

Well, it would explain a number of things about the way he has managed his presidential campaign, beginning with the issue of how he has managed his presidential campaign. See, for example, Mitt Is On Fire, a collection of conservative wailings about what is arguably the worst GOP presidential campaign since…John McCain’s.

Additionally, it would explain his and Ann Romney‘s sense of entitlement, which Ann summed up in her best elitist manner: “It’s our turn.”

Then there’s his attitude towards withholding a more extensive release of his taxes that, in contravention to his own father’s example of releasing 12 years worth, would give American voters a better understanding of how he became so filthy rich.

And finally, it would explain his cavalier attitude to providing any meaningful details about his policy imperatives. As with his refusal to provide same with regard to his taxes, the overarching goal of saving the Constitution must take priority over such quotidian concerns.

Of course, all of these infirmities of the Romney campaign can be explained using CW political analysis. But, as every novelist or screenwriter knows (written a few of the latter myself), understanding a protagonist’s formative beliefs provides insight into his character, and ultimately, his motivations and actions.

If I be permitted a prophecy of my own– Romney’s presidential bid will go down in flames. The only question remaining is how much damage he will do the the immediate, mid-range, and long term goals of the GOP. As conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham warned:

“If you can’t beat Barack Obama with this record, then shut down the party. Shut it down, start new, with new people. Because this is a gimme election, or at least it should be.”

In Eat The Rich, I referenced an article by Matt Taiibbi about AIG, the allegedly too big to fail insurance company that played a crucial role in keeping the Wall Street Casino open 24/7. Said Matt:

…AIG is what happens when short, bald managers of otherwise boring financial bureaucracies start seeing Brad Pitt in the mirror…who acted like making huge bets with other people’s money would make [their] dick[s] bigger.

Two and half years later, the peasants have grabbed their pithchforks and pitched their tents, Occupying Wall Street and hundreds of other cities in the US and across the world.

One can understand if the 1% are getting a bit nervous about the “barbarians…at the gated communities,” as Stephen Colbert describes them in a segment titled Wealth Under Siege.

After instructing the 99% to leave the room and do some “extreme couponing” or something, he offers some timely, survival tips to the uber rich. Pulling out a copy of Yacht Magazine, he notes that the zeitgeist has definitely changed. Yacht’s are no longer being sold as luxury items of conspicuous consumption, but as survival necessities. Secure, “artificial libertarian Islands” await the Job Creators if only they can beat the ungrateful, angry mobs to the docks.

Ahoy!

But there’s help for that too. Either an armored SUV limousine with a custom poop humidor, guaranteed to withstand a fusillade of bullets for 24 hours; or a decked out RV that looks “like a Storm Trooper banged a Winnebago.”

Stephen concludes by asking the age old theological question:

Could God build a yacht so big that even He couldn’t fill with bitches?

Admiral Rupert and his would be successors, son James and head wench, Rebekah Brooks

The ongoing ship wreck of Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, News Corporation, dipped its bow farther into the icy waters of the Atlantic yesterday.

A year after the company announced its $12 billion offer to buy the 61% of England’s largest satellite tv company, British Sky Broadcasting that it didn’t already own, it bowed to the inevitable and withdrew its bid, which needed government approval to proceed. Had the buyout of BSkyB succeeded, it would have been the crown jewel in the Murdoch family holdings.

Two days prior to the BSB withdrawal announcement, Murdoch of Mordor shuttered the doors of one of his most lucrative newspaper holdings, the 168 year old News of the World. Turns out its reporters, and now apparently reporters from his other three newspapers, The Sun, The Times, and The Sunday Times, had illegally hacked the phone records of a whole host of British citizens, including actors, politicians, the Royal Family, police investigators, victims of the 7/7 subway bombings, the families of veterans killed in action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and perhaps most egregious of all, 11 year old murder victim, Milly Dowler.

Historians might well consider the Dowler case the straw that broke the camel’s back. Milly was murdered by a serial killer, a tragedy that naturally captured the imagination of millions. In a deplorable attempt to advance the story’s emotional arc, Murdoch’s minions hacked her voice mail records, hoping to find some additional, melodramatic details to keep the story boiling on the front burner, producing false hopes from her parents and police investigators that Milly was still alive, somewhere, auditing her messages from afar.

Reporters from The Sun are also suspected of hacking the tax, phone, legal records of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Brown was alerted by his bank, Abbey National, that someone was “blagging”, his account records, aka identity theft. Bad enough. But then it got personal:

But the most damaging aspect of the affair involved Mr. Brown’s [5 year old] son. The person close to Mr. Brown said he believed that The Sun gained access to his son’s medical records for an article about his cystic fibrosis that ran in November 2006, four months after the boy’s birth. The BBC, quoting its sources, said the information about the boy’s condition had been obtained first by The Sunday Times, and passed to The Sun. It said that Rebekah Brooks, then The Sun’s editor and now News International’s chief executive, called Mr. Brown and his wife, Sarah, to tell them that the paper knew of the boy’s condition, which they had believed was something known only to themselves and medical professionals who were caring for their son.

Ed Schultz offers us a priceless DVD collector’s edition, featuring the vocal stylings of Spin O’Reilly trying to defend the indefensible; Brian Kilmeade singing falsetto on a recent Gallup Poll showing that 61% of Americans actually favor rather than oppose collective bargaining; and a rare moment of truthful political analysis of the Wisconsin protests by the dynamic duo of Shep Shepherd and Juan Williams.

Maybe poor Megyn didn’t get the memo that the techs at Fux hadn’t yet figured out a way to make videos of their shows self-destruct after being broadcast. Or that Stewart been watching them daily for the last twelve years. Or that Media Matters has been archiving them for six.

More likely, the people at Fux just don’t care, since their main goal is to keep their viewers in a constant state of low boil agitation, consuming cognitive resources that would otherwise be available for, say, fact checking and reflection.

Murdoch lost a half billion dollars before Fux reached break-even. The man obviously knows the value of controlling a political narrative. Kinda like that outfit that Fux is always comparing its opposition to.

ABIDE.

MICHAEL HART

You humans have begun an endless unfolding of an almost infinite panorama, a limitless expanding of never-ending, ever-widening spheres of opportunity for exhilarating service, matchless adventure, sublime uncertainty, and boundless attainment. When the clouds gather overhead, your faith should accept the fact of the presence of the indwelling Adjuster, and thus you should be able to look beyond the mists of mortal uncertainty into the clear shining of the sun of eternal righteousness on the beckoning heights of the mansion worlds...
—The URANTIA Book